Review: Blood Bowl on the Nintendo DS

Let me be perfectly clear, I love Blood Bowl. I've played this game of fantasy football for over 10 years on the tabletop, and have tried both Fumbbl and the first PC game from 1995.

When French producer Cyanide announced that they were going to make a new version of this amazing game, I was ecstatic. My eagerness to play this game reached new heights when they announced that it was going to be released on the Nintendo DS.

The game is set for a September release, but I managed to get a copy from Amazon.fr in July. When I got the game in the mail, I excitedly opened the package and popped the cartridge into my DS. The first thing that hit me was how dark and gritty the game was. From the screenshots, it looks like the graphics are crisp and clear. Unfortunately, these screenshot were taken from a DS Emulator, and are not the least bit similar to what awaits the player.

Graphics
Cyanide went for a 3D-isometric representation of the Blood Bowl pitch. The players are pre-rendered 3D-animations, similar to the horrible DS game "Treasure Planet". The problem here is the resolution on the DS. The animations seem too scaled down from the original rendering. Stray pixels here and there really puts me off and feels irritating. Couldn't they be bothered to touch up the animations more?

The screen is dark. The dark browns, greens and greys makes it almost impossible to see what's going on. I've had to play Blood Bowl on the DS at home, with the curtains closed. The problem lies in the contrast levels. The DS screen isn't very big or bright, and it doesn't do contrasts well. The game developers need to overstate graphical contrasts on the DS to make things visible in normal lighting conditions. Cyanide didn't.

UPDATE: Since writing this review, I've been told that the DS Lite and DSi screens are much brighter than my 1st generation DS. I guess the game performs better on the newer systems, but I haven't yet had the opportunity to check it out myself.

I can't help to feel that hiring some classic pixel-animators would have been a better decision than hiring 3D animators. 3D just doesn't work too well on the DS, and Blood Bowl suffers in this regard.

Gameplay
I've played Blood Bowl for many years, so I started a league on "Veteran" difficulty. The only other difficulty is "Rookie", so that was right out. After winning my first match 3-0, I wasn't very impressed with the AI. After ten matches, the AI had scored a total of 2 touchdowns, whereas I was winning with 4 or more on a regular basis. Star Player Points were coming in by the bucket load, and my Team Rating quickly passed 200.

I was wondering why the AI didn't do better. In fact, it seemed to be getting worse every game! Then it hit me: The AI wasn't selecting good skills! Every time a player got a skill increase, the AI would give it Strip Ball. The next skill was Pass Block. This was true for almost every team I played against!

Never once did I see that the AI had selected Block or Tackle or Dodge for its key players. Sure, Strip Ball can be good, but on all players on the team? No.



Sometimes, the AI gets stumped on what to do next. Several times, I've had to wait over two minutes before it starts moving. Other times, especially with few players on the pitch, it doesn't do anything! Suffice to say, it's not much of a challenge.

And then it crashed!
Several times, after scoring a touchdown, the game has frozen when I try to set up my team on the pitch. This can be acceptable for a little while on a PC release, but it's not as if I'm getting a patch for the DS any time soon, is it? No, of course it isn't.

Fumbbl-bowl would have been a much better graphical representation on the DS

How it could've been
I still don't understand why French producer Cyanide couldn't have made the graphics more basic and fitting for the DS. The graphics demonstrated on Fumbbl is, in my opinion, perfect for the DS. It is cartoon-like, the colours have a high contrast and it is easy to see what's going on.

What do you think of Blood Bowl on the DS? Have you had a different experience regarding the graphics or gameplay? Please let me know in the comment section!

In conclusion I rate Blood Bowl on the Nintendo DS, a

(yeah, you know what that means, people!)

Have you tried Blood Bowl?

Blood Bowl
Originally uploaded by Xadhoom.

Blood Bowl, the game of fantasy football is easily the best game ever designed. It has everything; miniatures, clear and precise rules, a great concept and backstory, and a tried and tested campaign format.

What is Blood Bowl?
Imagine that the inhabitants of the Warhammer world put down their weapons from time to time, and met on a field to play football instead of war. Welcome to Blood Bowl!

The league I'm currently in is called Torshov Touchdown, and consists of 14 teams. These teams are divided into two divisions of 7 teams each. With matches and rematches, this gives each team 12 matches per season.

What do I need to play?
First of all, you're going to need a gaming board. You can make this yourself, but the easiest route is to buy the Blood Bowl starter set. This is a great kit! Not only do you get a high-quality gaming board, you also get two full teams; Orcs and Humans.

The rules are currently in their fifth edition, and can be downloaded for free from the Games Workshop website.

How is it played?
After you have selected a team, you decide which team is going to be the kicker. The kicking team sets up first, then the receiving team, and the ball is kicked to the receiving team's half of the pitch.

Both teams are trying to get the ball into the other team's End Zone, which is 13 squares from the middle of the board, the Line of Scrimmage. To do this you must beat up the opposition, run around them or outwit them. Orcs and Chaos are strong and like to knock around some elves. The Elves themselves are more fond of passing the ball around and running really fast.

Each player has 4 stats, Movement, Strength, Agility and Armour. Movement decides how many squares you can run each turn. A stronger player has a better chance of beating up an opponent. An agile player is better at handling the ball, dodging opponents and leaping over them. Armour is important to reduce damage.

During the match, you make a note each time a player hurts an opponent, each time the pass the ball, score a touchdown or intercept the ball. The player earns Star Player Points for these actions, and will gain skills to use in future matches when reaching certain thresholds. For me, this is what makes Blood Bowl so great. Even if you lose the match, you get some SPP that makes you team a little better for the next game.

Which team is the best one?
Every time I teach a new player the game, they ask me this question. The truth is, that this really depends on two things. The player's playstyle and the length of the league.

If the tournament is short, teams that start with a lot of useful skills are superior. Chaos doesn't start with any skills, and will have a really tough time against Amazons, which are very skilled. However, if the league goes on indefinitely, these differences fade, and most teams are pretty equal in performance.

Not to say that they don't perform differently! Oh, no! Orcs, Dwarfs and Chaos are still going to beat the crap out of your Wood Elves!

In longer leagues, the player's playstyle becomes much more important to which team is the best one (for you). Some players thrive with teams that scores at most two touchdowns per match, but hurts the opposing team greatly in the process. Other players cannot fathom how anyone would play anything less agile than an elf.

In conclusion, play what you think is cool! (Halflings and Goblins still suck, though)

What are you waiting for? Order Blood Bowl, get your friends to buy a team, and start a league. It's awesome, people! :D

Blood Bowl video report

As a little experiment, my buddy Norau and I tried to video tape the first drive of our first league match this season.

I fielded my Dark Elf team, the "Brides of Khaine", while Norau played his Ork team, the "Pazvik Juggernotz". The rule set we use is a slightly modified "Living Rulebook 4". If you can read Norwegian, you can download it here (yeah, we translated it).



The tactic I want to show you here, I call "The old switcheroo". Receiving the ball, I place most of my players on the right flank. Note the Dark Elf Blitzer i place in the middle, near the Line of Scrimmage. This Blitzer has a Movement Allowance of 7 squares and has got the skill Sure Feet. This means that she can move 9 squares relatively safely. After the Orks have all moved over to the right, trying to stop the other elves, she goes for it!

The Orks are simply too slow to stop her, as she receives the ball and sprints to the End Zone for the Touchdown!

If the Ork player leaves some players on the other flank to defend against this tactic (he will need at least two), you will have less orks to plough through should you decide to fight your way through their lines. Remember to keep some skilled linemen on the Line of Scrimmage to keep the Black Orks from moving too far.

We will play the rematch in a month or so, and will try to get it on video in its entirety! Stay tuned.

Fortune favours the bold

Hiding in cover just won't do
Originally uploaded by Xadhoom.

Everywhere on the 40k-websphere, people are talking about math. Mathhammer 40k is a roaring beast and everyone knows that 10 Space Marines will kill 6,66 Orks when rapid firing their Bolters. Every tactic is devised using the law of averages, and anyone trying to think outside the box is regarded as a noob.

The net result of this line of thought is that bold maneuvers are unthinkable. The one, daring move that will win or lose the game for you is never attempted because the focus of the game has become to reduce risks, not attempt to win.

Only 2+ with re-roll for me, thanks
This is most extremely displayed in the game of fantasy football; Blood Bowl. A regular opponent of mine never attempts a move unless the risk is minimal. Even if a move on a 5+ will be extremely beneficial to him, he never even considers it, preferring to make a less beneficial 2+-with-re-roll-move instead.

Another regular opponent often attempts moves that requires a 6 on the die. This works surprisingly well, because the opposition never even considers the possibility that anyone would be so stupid as to attempt such a risky maneuver! When it works, the opponent is caught completely flat-footed.

But what about 40k?
This doctrine can be directly translated to 40k. If you can use risky, but well-thought-out moves to surprise your opponent, you can catch him off-guard.

Everyone knows that staying in cover is the smart thing to do. If the opponent expects you to go for that single piece of cover, he has an edge over you. He knows what you will be spending the next turns doing, and where you will end up. He can then position his forces perfectly to eradicate you, 4+ cover save or not.

Instead, use this to your advantage! Use your vehicles or expendable infantry units as cover, or disregard cover altogether. The element of surprise is powerful indeed!

Taking less powerful units can be advantageous
One of the reasons that make armies like Dark Eldar and Witch Hunters win games is the opposition's lack of familiarity with them. Their play style is often surprising for opponents being used to fighting Eldar or Space Marines. Sure, a flying Seer Council is a powerful unit, but your opponent will likely have seen it before. Tactics to handle them have been devised, and incorporated into their army list.

At my local gaming club, almost no one plays Dark Eldar or the Inquisition. The result is that they don't know how to best handle them. They even sometimes have problems deciding which target is the most threatening. This often results in a comfortable victory, even with an inferior army.

This can be used in you normal armies as well. Field units that no one else does. Take Space Marines, for example. Not many people use scouts, and if they do, they give them sniper rifles and camo cloaks. Hardly an impressive sniper unit, being outmatched by even Ratlings!

Instead, take them in units of 5 and put them in a Land Speeder Storm. Give them shotguns or bolt pistol/combat blades and charge them at the enemy. Your opponent will likely be baffled of your daring move, and either try to shoot it down or ignore it. Regardless, you haven't lost much if it is destroyed, and they can be surprisingly destructive if they reach the enemy. The key to using them is either using their scout move to threaten any point on the board in turn 1, or using outflank to do basically the same, only later. Being open-topped, the Storm can move 12" and drop it's contents, still allowing for shooting and charging!

In a recent game, I took Mandrakes and Scourge. These units are widely regarded as sub-par, compared to the other units in the Dark Eldar List. My opponent wasn't familiar with the capabilities of these units, and they performed sterlingly. Four units were killed or run off the board. Not bad for units some people call "the worst units in the game"!

Player #6 +1 ST!!!

When you roll double sixes for the next skill in Blood Bowl, the player gets +1 Strength. For Elves, this is awsome! This Dark Elf Runner is now as strong as a Chaos Warrior!

Blood Bowl trip

Blood Bowl match

Played two matches at our local GW tonight. At this point I was in the lead, 2-0.

Match of the day: Dark Elf vs Khemri

Today, I'm playing my first game with my new Blood Bowl team, the Brides of Khaine. I am playing against my friend Bjørn, and his Khemri team Kommunistpartiet.

I don't have much in the way of skills nor re-rolls, so I will have to depend on my superior mobility (higher movement and agility) to win this match. We played a test match (at 1200k gp) a few weeks ago, which ended 2-2 after some lucky breaks for me. Those Tomb Guards are tough cookies, especially when they get hold of the ball!

Update: I lost the game 0-1. Only two re-rolls and no re-roll skills assured that important moves went wrong for me. Kudos to Bjørn for playing very well in the match, and scoring with a Skeleton!

Chaos Cultist with Claws

Chaos Cultist with Claws
Originally uploaded by Xadhoom.

Blood Bowl is simply a fantastic game.

A few friends of me and I regularly rent a cabin and go away for a weekend of Blood Bowl. We use a modified version of Games Workshop's LRB4, which suits me just fine.

My team is an experimental Chaos team, which I have written about earlier in these pages. I just got a couple of new players, and promptly rolled a 12 for this Chaos Cultist's random mutation. I selected the mutation Claws, which we have modified to always roll vs Av7. This will hopefully make it easier for me to break those pesky dwarfs.

Napariel and Azapiel

Napariel and Azapiel
Originally uploaded by Xadhoom.

These two guys are the two first Chaos Warriors in my new Blood Bowl team "Disciples of Ahriman". I have played in Torshov Touchdown for a few years now, and recently switched from the Lizardmen team "Lounge Lizards" to an experimental Tzeentchian Chaos Team. They are ridiculously expensive, but very interesting to play. Each Warrior (5 4 3 9) and Cultist (6 3 3 8) start with a Random Mutation. This makes them a great challenge to play. I have so far lost four of my six first games, but this only makes the victories sweeter.

My new Blood Bowl team

My new Blood Bowl team
Originally uploaded by Xadhoom.

Wow, half a year just flies by, and no new painted miniatures has appeared on my shelf. My interest in miniature wargaming is obviously like a roller coaster, and I'm on my way up the hill again.

I have started on a new Blood Bowl team, the Disciples of Ahriman. They are from an unofficial team list by Jervis Johnson, posted on the GW website for Blood Bowl, www.bloodbowl.com.

They all start with a random mutation, which is selected by rolling 2d6 and consulting a special mutation chart. I got four guys with Foul Appearance, three with Extra Arms, and an assortment of other strangeness. The minis are converted and awaiting a lick of paint. I have approximately three weeks to paint the team, but this shouldn't be a problem, should it?